The Importance of Peer Relationships for Children Social Development

Peer relationships play a pivotal role in the promotion of social development in children. Peer relationships represent the interactions among people of the same age and their interactionist activities. Although these relationships have been viewed as hazards over the years, their benefits surpass the limitations whenever appropriately applied and utilized. Social development entails continued enhancement of skills relevant to help one interact with the immediate social environment consisting of people and prevailing conditions and situations. The peer relationships development in children is aided by the combined role played by parents, practitioners as well as the attitudes of the children being taught. Moreover, peer relationships create a sense of responsibility in children, eradication of loneliness caused by family troubles, as well as the enhancement of social competence. These are rationales to the development of social development in an individual. Many problems in children are as a result of poor social upbringing, which ultimately leads to the withdrawal of some children from their peers. However, recent years have seen researchers, scholars, as well as academicians getting actively involved in the study of the effects of peer relationships in human life (Ford and Harris, 1999).Peer relationships are attributed to a number of significant elements, which include self/irritability, family, school, and peers as well as work. The self/ irritability element determines the response of distinct individuals to occurrences/phenomena. Some children who are faced with difficulties resulting from physical, family troubles, abandonment, resiliency, and exceptionality respond slowly to peer-relationships. In contrast, those in the relevant contexts often demonstrate a quick response to peer relationships. Secondly, family context plays a pivotal role in the performance of a child in social realms. Bronfenbrenner’s systems refer to this as the main micro-system influence (Siegel, 2008).